Chapter 3
3
JACK
“He out of the shitter yet?” Dax asked, casually leaning against the low wall that surrounded the roof and kept him from plummeting thirty-six stories. He was using his knife to clean his fingernails.
I stood beside him, tucked beside an HVAC unit, rifle in hand. We were on the roof of a downtown Denver high-rise. I glanced at my wristwatch. “He should be done any minute.”
It was the perfect night for a hit like this. No wind. Calm skies. All I had to do was wait for the fucker’s very consistent bowels to be emptied and come out onto the balcony of his penthouse for his usual before-bed dip in his hot tub. A man with a routine like his made for an easy target.
That was why Dax came along for the ride. A fun Saturday night with a murder thrown in for fun. We’d been business partners for years, if one could call what we did a business. We weren’t software engineers or tennis instructors. I did the hits; he did the fixing.
If I were a girl, I’d call him my BFF. He was my business partner. A fixer, not a hitman. The difference? I took the jobs that killed people who were a problem and Dax fixed other people’s problems. An example: My son was arrested with two male prostitutes and is in jail in Omaha. Make it go away. Which Dax did. Sometimes people died, but not usually. My jobs had a 100% dead body count.
Dax was extroverted and liked people. I didn’t, which helped with the whole killing thing. Besides Dax, I was a loner. Ever since my deadbeat dad skipped out on me and my mom and she had to buckle down and work three jobs to make ends meet before dying at forty-three, I didn’t trust others all that much.
We’d been in the same fourth grade class at Pinnacle Hills Elementary. When Vinnie Mancuso, a vindictive little shit with a wicked overbite, stole Mabel Delmar’s lunch, we decided to make him pay by giving him a swirlie in the boys’ bathroom by the cafeteria.
We ended up in the principal’s office and since I had no dad and my mother had been working, Dax’s dad, Big Mike, came in to claim us both. He was a tough as nails guy who ran a rough and sweaty fighter gym with a side gig. While he didn’t have a title like hitman or fixer, he did a little of both. He took care of the bad guys around town, the ones who deserved to be dealt with and the police couldn’t touch for whatever reason.
Dax and I bonded during our three-day suspension, our punishment to clean the place top to bottom. When it smelled more like pine cleaner than dirty jockstraps, he patted us on our backs and told us he was proud of us taking care of the trash. That some people deserved to be taken out, even if that meant using their head for a toilet bowl brush. From then on, he showed us everything we knew, and we learned that everything was black and white. Good guys and bad guys.
No one fucked with either of us at school after that day. Mabel offered to share her lunch with me for a few years, then offered her virginity when we were sixteen.
Dax and I upgraded our technique with boxing, MMA and other, more deadly lessons. As for Big Mike, he retired to Florida a few years back and let us handle things.
I glanced at my watch. It was ten-thirty at night, the same time my target took a shit, like clockwork. Yeah, I researched it. All in a day’s work as a hitman.
“Got those new bullets finally,” Dax said casually, switching hands with his knife to clean the rest of his fingernails. His hair was lighter. So was his body. So was his fucking mood in comparison to mine. Women pretty much tossed their panties when he smiled, which was often.
“Figured we can test them out.”
“I’m down.”
This was what two killers did for fun. No beer and a ball game. No recreational softball team. We shot watermelons with hollow tip bullets. And we could write off on our taxes the cost of ammo and the mileage to Wyoming where we had free rein to shoot targets.
“Can’t believe you had to fly commercial yesterday,” he said, keeping the conversation moving. He shook his head in either commiseration or sorrow. “Must’ve been hell.”
“Definitely not hell. ”
I thought of the woman who’d been in the seat beside me. I didn’t even know her name. But I knew her ass was a fucking work of art, she had a dimple in her right cheek and underneath that prim, good girl exterior lived a naughty vixen who was down for some sweaty, dirty fun. Her taste in reading had been the first obvious sign, but what she told me as we made our final descent into Denver was another.
Every guy thinks a woman wants flowers and moonlight when in fact every woman actually wants to get railed by a dirty talker. You’ve heard of a lady on the streets but a whore in the sheets? Well, we want a gentleman on the streets who’s down for a pound. I have a list and I want to do all of it.
My dick had been hard the entire time–really fucking uncomfortable in economy but thankful that the tray table could hide it–and I almost choked on a sip of my four-dollar ginger ale when she shared.
“What was wrong with Reggiano’s jet again?” he asked, pulling me out of my thoughts of Pound Town with Miss Librarian.
“O Ring or something. Eyebrows and Joey Brains were like hangry toddlers.”
Leaning down, I peeked through the rifle scope once more into the target’s apartment in the other building. The lights throughout the penthouse were on. Someone had good taste in interior design.
“Sal Reggiano must’ve liked my work because he messaged. He’s got another job for me. Next week. Someone’s coming in for the Rockies game. Wants him taken out while he’s here. ”
“Who wants to watch the Rockies?” Dax asked, stunned.
He had me there. The major league baseball team was mediocre, at best, these days and wasn’t making any news headlines. Why someone would come to Denver to see them stumped both of us.
“Some guy named Turkleman. He’s from Texas. Guess he’s got a thing to make it to every major league park or something.”
“You’re not going to make the hit at the stadium, are you?”
I looked up from my scope, glanced his way. As if I’d be that stupid. I didn’t need ten thousand witnesses.
“That’s what I thought. Lemme know if you need any help.”
“Will do,” I replied.
Three jobs this week and another one next had me craving boredom. I wanted to sleep late, read the paper. Go to the corner coffee shop and meet friends. Run. Play racquetball. Whatever normal people did. Not spend a Monday night on a skyscraper rooftop waiting for a sex trafficker to finish taking a shit so I could blow the back of his head out.
Normal, like the woman on the plane. What would it be like to be normal, to not see everyone and everything as good and bad.
“Ever read a romance book?” I asked, then movement out of the corner of my eye had me turning, peered into the scope again. “He’s out.”
The bedroom door opened and out came the target in a white robe with the sash about his waist loose enough that a large swath of his broad chest and heavy paunch stuck out. He was talking to someone on his cell. Had he talked on the phone while having a shit?
Dax turned, folded his knife and tucked it into his pants pocket, then crossed his arms over his chest. He wore a suit minus the jacket, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up.
Roger Thorndyke, the target, was as douchy as his name. Insider trading. Corporate greed. That meant he was an asshole, but not enough for me to kill the guy. But when my client wanted him dead for also being the head of a trafficking ring that kidnapped his niece and took her over the border to a brothel in Tijuana, I took the contract.
Say goodbye, fucker.
“Did you just ask me if I read romance ?” Dax asked.
I continued to stare through the scope as I answered. “Yeah. It’s actually pretty good. Way better than any porn I’ve seen.”
Dax was quiet long enough that I lifted my eye from the target and glanced up at him.
“What?” I asked.
“When did you start reading romance ?”
“On the flight from Vegas over a woman’s shoulder.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “I’d think a woman who reads kinky shit’s gotta be down for some fun.”
I thought of the mysterious and sexy librarian and wasn’t thrilled with Dax talking about her that way. Even if he was probably right. Fuck, was she really a whore in the sheets?
Right now, I had to think with the right head and not the one in my pants. I watched Thorndyke move around his kitchen. The fridge door opened. Closed. He was milling around, bottle of water in hand, while he talked. After another thirty seconds, he dropped his cell on the counter, scratched his balls, then headed toward the balcony.
“Two mil for this guy?” Dax asked.
“Yup.”
“Steep. What’d he do?”
“Trafficking.”
Dax’s chest emitted a dark rumble. He felt the same as me when it came to that shit.
This was one bad fucker, and hard to access. He had bodyguards and serious security measures. Bulletproof glass on his penthouse windows. But there was no security watching him when he took a nightly dip in his hot tub.
This was the narrow window I needed, lasting at most, a few minutes. With one squeeze of the trigger, the world would have one less bad guy in it, and I’d be a few mil richer. I didn’t need the money. I was flush with cash because all I did was work. Same went for Dax. Except, if we didn’t work, what else would we do? Take up doubles tennis?
The idea made my mouth quirk as I eyed Thorndyke through the scope.
We weren’t “made” like Sal Reggiano–or the King of England–where the only way to get out of the job was death. We could quit and walk away from the life. But “hitman” on a resume wouldn’t get me any jobs besides pest and vermin control and I didn’t look good in coveralls. Besides that, what would I do? Learn floral arranging? Take up golf? Go on a bike tour of Tuscany?
We were both vigilantes because we wanted all the bad guys dealt with. Me? I wanted them dead. Ones who deserved to be removed from the earth. Pedophiles. Warlords. Rapists. Murderers. Crooked politicians. Maybe even Little Miss Librarian’s cheating, self-absorbed ex.
My constant thought since she told me about that was who the fuck would cheat on her? If she were mine, I’d cut off anyone’s hands who touched her. And I’d talk dirty and give her the pounding she craved. Knowing her pussy wasn’t getting the attention it deserved was a fucking shame. While I’d take care of her every desire, I wasn’t boyfriend material. I didn’t date. Didn’t do relationships. And my sexy seatmate screamed long-term.
She had a job, a consistent paycheck from Coal Springs Public Library. That was what the barcode sticker on the front of the book we’d been reading had said. Coal Springs was nestled in the mountains above Denver, which meant she was also a small town girl. She probably had a house with a picket fence. A dog she rescued from the pound. A mother who probably made meatloaf and lived down the street.
She also had a very naughty mind. I felt a smile tug as I remembered the look on her face when she found out I knew what she was reading. Or the answers she gave me about how she would want a guy to fuck her.
I love how Colin is focused on Mia. He’s into her and is obsessed. He can’t keep his hands off her. It’s something on my sex list.
“Shit,” I muttered. My dick pressed against my pants as I remembered.
“What?”
I focused back through the scope, saw that the target was beside the hot tub with the interior lights were enough for me to see him.
I wasn’t going to tell him about my hard-on, especially during a job.
“Thorndyke dropped the robe,” I said instead as explanation.
I glanced away from his low-hanging balls and hairy ass to save my eyes, letting the guy climb in without an audience. My hard-on was long gone. “Kill me if I ever get a gut because I doubt he can even see his micro-dick.”
Thorndyke closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the edge of the tub, savoring the hot water and the last seconds of his life.
Dax grunted. “Good thing I can’t see that far in the dark.”
I focused through the scope, settled into the task. Took a deep breath, exhaled. Pulled the trigger.
I stood and started to disassemble my rifle.
He pushed off the wall, tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’m starved. Pancakes?”
“Yeah.” When my gun was back in its case and we were headed across the roof for the stairwell, I asked Dax, “Do you know what a Tbr is?”